A Meditation on Smoke
You exist to dissipate,
to dissolve into the humidity
of air that cannot breathe.
Now a funnel, then a tube, then a swirl,
I can smell your incantation.
You wish me luck,
you wish me peace,
you wish me to say good-bye
to cantankerous increase
and to burn the excess
and to trim the obfuscated
and to throw the refuse away.
One end is ash, the other clay,
And the other end paper which shall burn anyway.
Your light fingers beckon me into silence
And that my begrudged heart shall cease
To grumble in the hours of prime
When I should wake and work till vesper time.
A smoky end falls into the tray.
Such is a lifespan, it melts away
And dislodges from the coil
–recoil.
With flame, you sever;
With smoke, you consume.
This youth I bear I shan’t presume to last
Even as it severs past,
Even as it severs fast.
Such is love, stoked like a bonfire.
So soon shall it expire
Just as it once did conspire
to raise my soul
in swirls, curls and loops,
and hoops,
false hopes.
Don’t.
Now I’m tired, now bland,
like the cigarette in my hand.
I live to consolidate.
(Cheung Chau, 2005)